pacf￼z￼￼m) n. 1. The belief that disputes between nations should and can be settled peacefully. a. Opposition to war or violence as a means of resolving disputes. b. Such opposition demonstrated by refusal to participate in military action. c. The right of free people that was only made possible by others that died fighting in wars to perserve such freedoms.

My biggest problem with war protests is that they are simply an expression of negativity at base level. The conduct of war is a proactive endeavor and I know exactly why I want to see it waged. All I have ever gotten out of anti-war protests (and I have seen quite a number of them over the past 40 years or so) is that the participants are against war, against violence, against serving their country, against sacrificing, against ruining whale habitat and any number of other things. I have never been able to figure out what they are for and what they are willing to give to get it.

Everytime I see someone driving a gas guzzling vehicle that they don't need pull into the driveway of their 3,000 square foot home I just cringe at the terrible sacrificing they are going through to make the world a better place.

If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

I'm getting sick of all the people complaining about the gas guzzling vehicles.

First, some people do have reasons for driving those vehicles, work or maybe even just living on truely bad roads in a Wisconsin winter???

Second, somewhere I saw a mention that we should just buy all our oil from Russia and leave the Middle East alone. Great plan, Russia buys oil from Iraq and has major investments in the country. That's part of why they don't want Iraq's government toppled.

Finally, and this will come as a shock to many people. If everyone who drove an SUV traded it in for a car that got 40 MPG, gas prices would go UP and we would still be buying oil from other countries! OPEC controls a huge portion of the worlds oil. OPEC will make sure they continue to make the same amount or more from the oil they export (anyone else notice that when gas prices go down OPEC lowers the amount of oil they export to increase the price again???). Also, we will still be able to get oil from other countries for cheaper than we can get it at home, especially since we don't want to drill into our reserves (a whole other issues). So, in summary, our demand for oil would go down, in responce OPEC will reduce the supply by an even larger amount increasing the price which allows their countries to make the same amount of money. At the same time the gas stations would increase their price because they still have to make a living off the reduced amount of gas purchased, meaning, prices go up!

No matter what we do we still continue to have the same problem, a fanatic group using religion as an arguement to kill people. Something we have gone to war over even when oil wasn't a factor.

As to the first point It is qualified by comments with the word "don't need".

Second, in that we import fifty percent of our oil, if we reduced usage by fifty percent we would not have to import oil from anyone.

Finally, reducing usage would increase the time reserves will last. In classical economics, increased supplies and availability generally decreases costs. And again this would lessen dependence on the rest of the world for increasingly unstable oil supplies and foreign OPEC manipulations. They see us as nothing but a drug addict on oil with the president's major supporter as pushers so they aren't worried about us kicking the habit anytime soon.

I drive a Honda gas/electric hybrid that gets close to 50 mpg. I save about $50 month on gas and will save about $100 per month when it goes to $3/gallon. Under the current Bush economy I save more by buying an efficient car than putting the money in a savings account. Maybe Bush could use that as a promotion for efficient cars. Oh, that's right, our American Auto manufacturers chose to buy a president instead of state of the art technology so now they are trying to catch up again.

Abe....not to string this nonsense out any longer than it has to, but how much did you pay up front for that roller skate? Can you haul a load of firewood in it or pick up the entire soccer team and take them to the Pizza Hut? As to the import export issue, even if we cut our oil usage we would still import most of it for two reasons. 1) Lets use theirs first. If we are eventualy going to run out of this stuff anyway it makes sense to burn somebody elses before we use our own. 2) We buy a lot of foreign oil because it is cheaper than pumping our own out of the ground. The oil business is pretty predictable that way and consumers as well as suppliers will usualy look for the cheapest deal they can find. If it was cheaper to pump Texas oil out of the ground you can bet your little skateboard of a car that we would be doing just that.

By the way, I drive a 8 year old minivan and have never owned a huge house. But if I did decide I wanted to drive an SUV and live in the Taj Mahal I figure that would be my right. Freedom is a wonderful thing and I am sure that just rankles the **** out of you liberals.

$22,000 with tax fully loaded and you get a $2,000 Fed tax deduction (Bush is now proposing a $75,000 Fed tax deduction for businesses that buy a $102,000 Hummer - explain that one).

As to: "Can you haul a load of firewood in it or pick up the entire soccer team and take them to the Pizza Hut?" I don't have to although is is indistinquishable from any other 5 person vehicle.

As to your numbered concerns, number 1 does not sound like a reason so much as an expression of self-interest. Number 2 makes no sense. Importing oil is not cheaper. As a matter of fact, when you add in the taxpayer subsidies in the form of military action, and oil spill cleanups, cultural, social, and environmental costs you are lookling at gasoline of $5-8 per gallon.

You may feel you have a right to indulge in whatever consumptive behavior you wish regardless of the negative impact it has on others. If a drunk driver ever kills someone in your family, I guess you'll just have to accept your own argument.

By the way I'm a classical libertarian.

"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

Originally posted by Dave:All I have ever gotten out of anti-war protests (and I have seen quite a number of them over the past 40 years or so) is that the participants are against war, against violence, against serving their country, against sacrificing.

I know many people opposed to going to war with Iraq and they include veterans who proudly served their country and aren't against making personal sacrifices. As for violence I hope we are all opposed to it although based on current American life we seem to thrive on it. The bottom line in a war with Iraq has nothing to do with ridding the world of another dictator or helping the Iraqi people, it has to do with oil.

Nell, Navy veteran opposed to war with Iraq

Nell

More women die of lung cancer than breast cancer. If you smoke, quit. If you don't, don't start.

I don’t see much difference between driving around in an SUV and running around the north woods on a snowmobile as far as excess use of oil goes. Maybe an SUV is a gas-guzzler but we are talking saving oil and trying to stop the flow of money to Iraq. Is it any better for a snowmobile owner to send a dollar to Iraq then it is for a SUV owner to send two? How about all those fishing boats on the lakes and rivers in Wisconsin? Are they necessary or is that something we should do away with also? Look at all the oil being burned up during the water ski shows right there under your bridge? And all the hundreds of other ski boats? Stop those too? Heating all those ice fishing shacks, are any of those oil burning stoves? They certainly are not necessary. Who gets to decide what recreational uses are permitted and which ones are not?

Now let’s talk about all the money that passing around because of SUV, boats and snowmobiles. The Tomahawk and northern Wisconsin job and tax base has been, and unless something drastically changes, will continue to be dearly dependent on all that “wasted” gas/oil. Doh!!!! If you live in or near Tomahawk, “you” are benefiting in some fashion from that “waste”!

I have owned an SUV and a boat of some sort for over 30 years and intend to continue to own them for as long as I keep enjoying ownership. I hope the boaters and snowmobile’s do the same! Oh, yeah, do I get brownie points because my house is only 2600 sq feet?

Got to run, left my SUV running out in the drive, going to take a run up the coast put my boat in and run around the bay for a few hours just to tick Arrianna Huffington off!!

Abe may like to call himself a classic libertarian, but he is anything but. Classic libertarians in this country have been pure political and social anarchists for over a century. The platform of their political organization has always contained planks calling for such things as complete individual liberty, personal responsibility, a free-market economy, and free trade. Looking at his posts you would have to be blind to miss the indicators that Abe is really an authoritarian political and social liberal. He has all the right answers and you have all the wrong ones; government should do everything it can to impose his answers on the rest of you (to include having everyone drive the same car that he does); and on and on and on. If Abe really wants to be a libertarian it would be best if he figured out what that really means before he uses the lable...it is embarrassing the real classic libertarians out there.

I expect all you that support the SUV boycott to dump all of your Microsoft stock and stop using anything made by Microsoft.

How Bill Gates Sponsored bin Laden

Corporation Microsoft and its president Bill Gates are still haunted with troubles. This time the troubles don’t concern accusations of monopolization of the operating systems market. As it turned out, the corporation sponsored bin Laden.

Some of the people posting on this board would have fit right in with the people who wanted to appease Hitler so they could have "peace in our time". And look what that got them !!!

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

To attempt to fuel the Tomahawk economy by tanking resources from the other side of the war explains its spotty success.

Who gets to decide what recreational uses are permitted and which ones are not? When you are negatively impacting your neighbors and/or driving the country into political instability, then you've moved into the "not" category. Many Americans at least in their minds have added a new right, the right to pollute.

If all the atheists left the United States it would lose 93% of the National Academy of Sciences but less than 1% of the prison population.

Dagger/Abraham once again shows he is a true authoritarian liberal. He has made all the decisions that need to be made and his only lament is that there is not some way for him to impose his values on the rest of you. He is currently down on the federal government because it is controled by conservatives who do not agree with his philosophies, but as soon as there is another liberal in control he will want to see a boatload of new legislation passed. Liberals really hate freedom. The fact that others have the right to disagree with them and, even worse, to do things that they don't approve of is like a burr under their saddles. This is why the American liberalism as we have known it is dying. For my part, its complete demise can not come soon enough.

I am amazed and disheartened to read the posts regarding protests against the possibility of war with Iraq. The right to protest is part of what we've fought wars about since the American Revolution. Yet, those whose analysis and conscience lead them to protest are depicted as pacifists, cowards ("they don't want to fight for their country"), and worse. I have very serious objections to a war with Iraq given the current arguments being made for such a war. But I haven't accused those who support that war of being "war mongers," "bloody militarists," etc. Early in the Vietnam war my history of childhood rheumatic fever kept me from being drafted. Later in the war -- for reasons never explained -- I was re-classified 1A and expected to be drafted at any time despite growing misgivings about that war. Had I been drafted I would have served because it was not clear to me whether Vietnam was a test of America's resolve to blunt communist expansion or a mistaken involvement in what appears now to be less about ideology and more about nationalism. I do remember veterans returning and becoming heavily involved in protests against the war -- the first time in American history that men who fought in a war returned home and protested against its continuation. And, of course, 30 years later Robert McNamara and others who led us into that war admitted that it was a mistake. I would hope that Americans would be very cautious about going to war unless it was very clear that it was necessary to guarantee our freedoms. The President has not made a convincing case. Well over 50% of Americans now say that the case has yet to be made and that, unless we are supported by the United Nations, we should not invade Iraq. Are they all "pacificists," "cowards," or even as one reader in a local paper called them "hippies"? "Hippies"(?) Saddam Hussein is evil but he is no Hitler. Iraq is not Germany of 1939. Let's not get carried away. The case should be examined on the facts -- something Flosum seems to find tiresome, but that's his problem. If Bush is going to make a case for war, he'd better do a lot better than he has so far because his evidence is not sufficient nor convincing. The numbers opposing the war are growing by the day, and they are as patriotic as those who clamor for military action as an option not as a last resort.

Bob is right about one thing. Sadam Hussein is no Hitler, and that is a fact. Hitler, although he was a WWI veteran and well versed in the use of chemical agents, chose never to use them on the battlefield throughout WWII. This in spite of the fact that he lost everything and also that his country had developed chemical weapons which were much more lethal than the ones used in WWI. Hitler had chemical as well as biological agents similar to the type we are talking about today....but he and his nation chose not to use them. Saddam Hussein has the same weapons and has already used them several times....on his own citizens. It is easy to see that Hussein is no Hitler. Why would anyone get excited?

Dave states, " He has made all the decisions that need to be made and his only lament is that there is not some way for him to impose his values on the rest of you. "

Sounds like he is describing Bush or Jerry Falwell dictating their "pro-life" agendi. "Don't make personal choices, listen to our dictates. Don't think for yourself, vote the way we do, have the same beliefs, OR ELSE."

"Know ye not why We created you all from the same dust? That no one should exalt himself over the other." -Baha'u'llah

Abraham, Dave pinned you right to the wall, and trying to deflect some of the heat to others isn't going to change a thing.

The National Institutes of Health has just released the results of a $200 million research study completed under a grant to Johns Hopkins.The new study has found that women who carry a little extra weight live longer than the men who mention it.

There we were, having a nice discussion about the authoritarian liberal political and economic views of Abraham/Dagger and like a flash we are talking about Fallwell and Bush. This is the way liberals have discussions. If they are not making very good headway in the topic under discussion, they simply change the subject to something they think will work better for them and continue on as though nothing much had happened. The plain fact is that Fallwell and Bush could be dill pickles and it would not change anything regarding the political, economic, and social philosphies of Abraham/Dagger. The real issue here is that Abraham/Dagger is a typical authoritarian liberal who wants desperately to force his ideas about what is right and wrong an the rest of us. He does not like that lable and does not like people to remind you that his selected vehicle for forcing you to live his way is government. His dislike for Bush and Fallwell are obvious. His desire to place huge limitations on your freedom and liberty are also obvious. As in so many things, it is not so much what we believe that separates us as it is how we manifest our beliefs.

Dave!! Very good. Seen you post on another thread regarding giving up our sovereignty (sp?) to the UN….we already have to a greater extent then I like. How anyone in their right mind can think the UN is better at making decisions for the United States the our own president, no matter what party he comes form, is beyond me. If w e don’t get the UN support…. I’d be out of that do-nothing, worthless organization in a heartbeat.

Flosum and Dave are unhappy with the United Nations. Now that's a familiar position held by conservatives for years. History, of course, has proven that view to be dead wrong. The United States is a willing and avid supporter of the United Nations. George Bush recognizes, even if Flosum and Dave don't, the importance of a world body where differences between and among nations can be discussed, deliberated, and resolved. The U.N. exists, and the U.S. is part of it, because nations agree that we share this planet and the welfare of one nation is dependent upon others. We reject the view of dominance based on military or even economic power. We look to cooperate with other nations to achieve peace and prosperity for ourselves and others in the world. This is not altruistic or idealistic claptrap, it is hard-nosed, steely-eyed reasoning based on long experience and a realization that without such an institution we face unacceptable risks of war, unchecked terrorism, poverty, disease, and privation. I've heard all of the "The U.N. can go to ****." talk that I want to hear. It's irrational nonsense that ignores history, our Judeo-Christian values, and responsibilities as a major military and economic power in an inter-dependent world. The United Nations does not threaten our basic freedoms. Only our own irrationality and recklessness can do that.